Just noticed that soon the Las Vegas Aces and New York Liberty will face off for the 2023 WNBA Championship Series in what ESPN called a “battle of the superteams,” even though almost no one has heard about it of one or the other team. Last year, when the WNBA’s Chicago Sky, after winning the league championship, held a victory parade, there were more people on the team’s open-top buses than fans in the stadiums. streets. This must have been depressing for the players who had worked so hard to win, but it couldn’t have told any of them that they deserved to win more money.
The low turnout stands in stark contrast to the Chicago Bulls’ raucous victory parades in their heyday, but at least the Sky didn’t instigate what happened in the aftermath of the Bulls’ 1992 championship, when riots broke out throughout the city, leading to 200 civilians and 95 police officers injured, 61 police vehicles damaged, more than 1,000 arrests and 347 stores looted.
The WNBA doesn’t inspire senseless, drunken violence, but the league doesn’t inspire much of anything. The only known player, Brittney Griner, became famous while trying to smuggle drugs into Russia. The WNBA is irrelevant. For what? Because no one is looking at him. ESPN, its main broadcaster, touts it as if the league is on par with the NBA or NFL, but when these segments appear, I’m pretty sure most viewers change the channel.
One of the narratives in the media is that WNBA players don’t make as much money as they should. This must be sexism. But the numbers are not sexist. The WNBA rankings are anemic compared to major men’s sports. The NFL averages 17 million viewers per telecast, NASCAR 2.2 million, MLB 1.4 million and the NBA 1.6 million. The WNBA, founded in 1996, averages only 321,000 spectators, with an average attendance of 6,615 people per game, compared to 18,000 for the NBA.
When Brittney Griner returned to court after her imprisonment, the 19,000-capacity Crypto.com Stadium in Los Angeles was only half full, despite the presence of – or perhaps because of this, because of the prospect of having to hear her speak – Vice President Kamala Harris. In her postgame press conference, Griner coach Vanessa Nygaard expressed disbelief at the size of the crowd: “I mean, it was great. But honestly, now go LA. We didn’t sell out the arena for BG? But how was it not a sellout? How was it not a sellout?
The illusion surrounding – and within – the WNBA, which receives a $12 million annual subsidy from the NBA, runs deep. Griner playing professional soccer overseas in Russia fits the narrative that WNBA players can’t earn enough at home, with an average salary of $147,000, to make a living. But how can a league that has never made a profit in its 27 years of existence (it loses $10 million a year) pay its players more? With bigger NBA subsidies?
WNBA teams play 40 games a year, compared to 82 for the NBA, giving players plenty of time to work overseas. Is the WNBA a charity? When LeBron James interviewed Former WNBA star Lisa Leslie suggested that NBA players could help subsidize the league’s salaries. Where is the feminism in such blatant begging of men? “Maybe one night,” she said, “you don’t go to the casino.” The sense of entitlement is strong.
Leslie claimed that NBA players failed to support WNBA players. Perhaps there is a reason for this. When Miami Heat player Andre Iguadola tweeted, “Mystics number 23 is cool!!! “, Aerial Powers, irritated at not mentioning his name, responded on Twitter: “Put some respect on my name, or keep it. tweet yourself!!!” As if that wasn’t harsh enough, Powers then tweeted a link to a TMZ article about Iguadola’s dispute with her ex over child support.
ESPN is at the forefront of media outlets calling for higher salaries from the WNBA. An example is a segment one of its hosts, Katie Nolan, did so on the subject. Nolan said it’s difficult to address the salary disparity problem because the league’s financial information is difficult to find. In fact, the WNBA shared the data with the WNBA Players Association, which kept it to itself, probably because the numbers are bad. Nolan pointed out that NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said one of the reasons WNBA salaries aren’t higher is because some teams aren’t profitable, then pointed out that a third of 30 NBA teams are in the red. after which she attacked the camera, rolling her eyes and sticking her tongue in her cheek. “So a number of NBA teams are losing money,” she continued, “for sure, and a number of WNBA teams are losing money, think- us, and yet only one of them is easily accepted and talked about all the time.” No, we don’t “think” that WNBA teams are losing money, and what Nolan failed to mention is that the 30 NBA teams generated $10 billion in revenue over the course of the 2021-2022 season, compared to $60 million for the WNBA.
The reason the WNBA creates so little buzz is captured in a single video of Brittney Griner tempting to dive into a solo shoot set up by the media. She is 6′ 10″, but missed her first two attempts. For comparison, Spud Webb – 5′ 7″ – won the NBA dunk championship in 1986.
In high school games, players dunk regularly. The WNBA lacks both entertainment value and star power, which cripples its marketing efforts. There are also a bunch of seriously missed shots (many of them almost layups) in league games that you don’t see in either the NBA or D1 college basketball.
Defending the WNBA, former NBA superstar Charles Barkley said: “Corporate America should put you in commercials, they should partner with you, so I’m asking these corporate America to step up their efforts to so you don’t have to.” go play in these other countries. They really need to do their part. Do their part? Their job is to sell their products, not support a struggling business model, and there are no stars in the WNBA to sell their products.
A meeting Newsy post from a WNBA player sums up the naivety and fallacy of the arguments for better WNBA pay. The interviewer asked the player how she summed up her argument for a raise and got this response: “If you take women out of the equation, where are we? And if you ask yourself and think about it, that’s all that really matters.” It has to be said. This in itself explains why we need to be paid, because what are we doing for the world? We do a lot. “
